Demons
Demons They are known as the Fallen, born from the original pairing of Fallen Angels and humans. They were born cursed to be the exact opposite of their Angels. While they are unable to devour souls to grow strong, they can work to collect souls using them to gain collective power among all of their kind who lie connected by worlds. Unlike Angels their forms don't range from massive war machines to even the basic monstrosities, because they are born from humans or human actions their basic forms while being altered usually appear as an animal or human like state. They were born with something like a soul but that is so much different from a soul, in a way much like the Angelic Grace. This is because the human trait of a soul was passed onto them, giving them almost uniform souls which each gave off an aura of Corruption which is the antithesis of the Grace within the Angels. Firstly, because of how Demons were made they do not to take on a living vessel in order to act upon the world, but it is noted that they are able to possess human forms as they see fit. This helps as they are able to release their Corruption almost freely, the stronger the corruption the more of an affect it has. Unlike Angels, their Corruption can be spread freely and while they can compress it much like an Angel does with Grace, when doing so the affects are as disastrous as an Angel releasing their Grace openly. They can use this Corruption to plant the seeds of sin within humans and even causing them to act upon their more baser instincts. Thanks to the face that Demons have more human like souls, they are granted the ability to renew their power and soul as any other person would. They also have the ability to share Corruption between one another, meaning that Demons are able to grow stronger simply by pouring their Corruption between one another just in the way that an Angel would their Grace. Demons much like Angels can rip the corruption out from one another meaning that along with pulling out a Demons power they have the ability to grant themselves the powers that the other Demons have. Bodies Unlike an Angel, demons have overly unique physical forms, which are unique onto their own selves and even demons of the same breed are each unique in their own ways. Demons are able to cross breed freely and completely, creating new breeds of Demons between themselves with the simple act of simply coming together and giving birth to a new type of Demon. Able to keep on their own demonic physical form they are able to shift into a human like body or even take on human hosts of vessels for each Demon to use freely. They have shown the ability to do both, to the point that they can possess multiple people at the same time, continually. Demons are each different considering their shifts between physical form, to the point some are born with horns or others could even be born with fins or some other alteration onto their species. Demons do not have cores like Angel's but they do have lines of energy across their body which radiate with the power of their mixed Aura and Corruption. These lines are just like that of an Angel's core, the brighter the burn and the larger the energy and flames they release the stronger the Aura and Corruption within the Demon, it is because of that someone is able to easily measure the power of a Demon in equal measures like they would an Angel. When turning into their true demonic form, these lines are built into their being, unable to be hidden as even the armor they adorn with their body quickly lights up with markings of their Corruption and is permanently marked by it. Their physical forms are made of armor, muscle, and other normal physical elements. While still pouring out their Aura and Corruption, they are completely stable which is the total opposite of how Angels are considering how and what their forms are made of. Demons are one of the few species that can stand up against the voice and light of an angel, allowing for the two of them to come together and cancel out the unrelenting bursts of Grace and Corruption, meaning that it must be concentrated and released in order to be used. Corruption Also known as the power of the Demons, it is a power that rests within the souls of all Demons, radiating from their bodies in constant waves, it can be in a way compared to the Madness that Black Bloods and Elder Gods give off. Corruption is a constant source of heat, constantly heating up the air around Demons. While Corruption does not give off a scent, it carries with it the scent of the Demon's Aura, this seems to be a universal constant for all forms of Corruption. When taking on their true form, Corruption does not have the same affects of Grace, not causing the destruction that is commonly seen with the release of Grace, instead it becomes a tangible energy source which burns through Mana and Aura around it. Corruption is an agent of just that corruption, while it does not cause sickness from being close to it, it does however cause a much different reaction. At the lowest form it causes people to have small slips from doing small white lies to causing even strong Yokai to become more irrational. As the Corruption grows stronger it can actually cause beings to become more violent down to the level of committing some of the more base deadly sins. At the full power, Corruption is able to override a person's basic instincts and actually causes them to commit varying to wide array of sin, going so far as to cause people to do horrible things freely. When weaponized it causes the rot and slight decay of aura down to a persons soul. This rot actually causes souls to be corrupted into demon souls. There are many ways to counteract this, is to quickly heal a person using Grace or another method. Another thing is that many Demon Corruptions carries curses in them ranging from physical transformation to bad luck. Traces of Corruption even causes evil spirits to gather around the traces of Corruption and there has been evidence that curses on people end up causing people to become evil spirits after death. Demoniacal Release This is perhaps one of their more powerful abilities that Demon's contain within each and every single one of them. Pulling in all of their Corruption and releasing it into their body they have the ability to take on a much more powerful demonic form. This could in a way be considered like a Yokai's Kami form but is much more wide spread. This is due to the fact the power of Yomi directly seeping into all of Hell and only concentrated pockets of it's power seeping into Yoma. This means the power to release into a secondary state would be acquired simply from spending enough time inside of Hell. What could be considered the most important part is that while Demoniacal Release is activated, it doubles their physical powers and their Corruption, it does not increase the abilities they can use. Meaning no matter how far they go or how strong they become, Demons can not increase their ability to do battle. (A Lesser Demon may be able to fight a President but it will never go beyond the abilities a Lesser Demon has.) Society Demons live in an extremely rigid society to which they follow due to the ways in which hell itself is set up. Firstly there are the minor demons, those who live at the edges of the rings of Hell. They are the weakest of all the demons who keep to torturing the souls within Hell, it is their job to ensure that sinners are punished for their crimes in life, this act either creates new lesser demons from beings unable to atone for their sins or allows those who have fully atoned to be purified and reincarnated. * It is important to note that Lesser Demons are dangerous as they are, usually responsible for the demon attacks. It is usually violent ghosts summoned through base rituals to summon Demons. Ouji boards and killing cats can help to bring a Lesser Demon's attention to a person, the Ghosts are usually the ones who take over. Next are High Demons, those demons populate the cities within the various levels of Hell, to which they keep together doing the jobs Hell maintains on Earth and Yoma, even the buying and selling of souls with ease. This is not to say that they will actively attack humans, it is their job to work Deals, those bargains humans are willing to sell their souls for, for which there is no damnation but instead their souls are collected for power for the demons and those who sell their souls end up being denied access to Heaven and become Lesser Demons. Next are Arch Demons, they populate the overly large cities around River Styx and within the City of Heretics. The Arch Demons are responsible for the inner workings of hell, responsible for the energy of the Souls being cycled through Hell for it's uses is one such job. Another is ensuring the power and follow through of the Deals that are made by the High Demons under their command. They are usually responsible for carrying out the deal and ensure that the terms are met, to put it simply High Demons are the salesmen but the Arch Demons are the ones handing out the paycheck. Following them are the Presidents of Hell, the strongest of all demons, those who solely inhabit the City of Heretics besides the Devils. The Presidents are the ones who ensure the politics and workings of all the circles remain in check. They help to shape Hell, giving it it's punishments, ensuring that Souls rightfully pass in and out of Hell, the lengths of damnation, and so on. It is as it sounds, they are the bureaucrats of Hell. Above them are those are the Knights of Hell, overly powerful demons whose strength rivals that of Devils. Then all demons follow the Devils, those of royal blood who helped to bring about their kind. These Demons were once people as it seemed, personally given the blood of the Devils to ensure that they were empowered with the full of the Corruption. This was followed by their training, the training that ensured they were the elite killing forces of Hell, they hold the power of the Presidents and of every other class of Demon, but are considered to be of the highest regard. Theology From Theology, demons were the spawn of Fallen Angels and Humans, their abilities and corruption gave them no place on Earth or Heaven to which they instead inhabited Hell and Purgatory. They were known as the tempters of men, leading them to do wicked things and for good reason, the more they lead people into Hell the more power that the Demons will gather as a collective. It could be said it started not as doing so to become strong or some wager with god, but instead to spite those who would kill and cast them off so easily. Eventually when Lucifer took control as the king of Devils, the Devil, they become more powerful, shown the ways in which they could grow their strength by converting humans. It is not that they corrupt humans, you see they go and work those already bound for hell further. This is not for some grand war, but instead that Hell is a prison made for the corruptible and wicked as well as those willing to give away their soul for power or wealth. Demons are not evil by nature, but painted into it by humans who worship the God of Heaven and his Angels. Abilities Much in the way that the Angelic scale of abilities work, the Demonic scale of abilities works in the same way. As a Demon progresses the stronger they become and have abilities to all powers on the scale below them but those below do not have abilities to the scale above. Minor Demons * Opening gates to Hell * Summoning Hellfire (fire that burns aura and souls not just the body) * Summoning Hellhounds * Corrupting souls * Stealing Aura * Teleportation * Manipulating lightning * Manipulating fire * Manipulating ice * Possessing corpses High Demons * Possessing live bodies (with low resistance) * Pulling souls out of bodies (the weaker the soul the easier it is) * Creating deals with the living * Making minor demons from human souls * Dragging souls into Hell * Inflicting phantom pain on souls Arch Demons * Opening gates to Hell which affect the physical world * Summoning massive storms * Resurrecting the dead * Placing souls into objects * Reading minds * Influencing human souls * Possessing live bodies (with ease) * Causing delusions Presidents * Bending Space * Bending Time * Slipping between dimensions * Taking Corruption into their form * Pulling Grace out of things * Taking on the role of a Land God * Regeneration of injuries (This does not negate the damage just seals it) * Mass psychic ability Knights * Burning Souls to the point of destruction * Obliteration of living beings (like Angels) * Transforming living beings into Demons * Surviving beyond dismemberment (they can exist as long as single atom of them remains. Their limbs remain mobile and move to the will of the Knight even when removed)